BY PAUL BY PAUL BY PAUL BY PAUL BY PAUL BY PAUL BY PAUL BY PAUL BY PAUL BY PAUL
Cusco, Peru
The centre of Cuzco town was very, very pretty. It felt really old and grand with many large buildings and ancient churches built on the old Inca foundations.
We did a 3D2N tour to Machu Pichu. The tour was dodgy from the beginning. Because Angus and Naomi wanted to go for a "reputable" company from the guidebook, we booked this tour through one of the recommended companies.
It was ok until they were 1 hour late to pick us up and we had to wait at some petrol station for a bigger bus to arrive. By the time we actually left Cuzco it was well past 9am and we were supposed to get picked up at 5:30am.
We arrived in Santa Maria where we had lunch and had to change to a minivan due to recent landslides. By this time Naomi was already so frustrated with the timing that she had an argument with the guide. She had her point though. We were supposed to be Santa Maria by about 10am, the next town Santa Teresa at midday, then to walk the 6 hours to the final town of Aquas Calientes where we were to stay the night. As we were about 4 hours behind the schedule, that meant we would have been at Aquas Calientes at around midnight!
The route to Santa Teresa was quite stunning with many waterfalls and small creeks which we crossed in the van. The road was also very, very windy and narrow with hundreds of metres of cliff on one side and the mountain on the other side. Angus sat next to the window and he nearly had a heart attack. I think his eyes were closed most of the time while he pretended that he was asleep.
After we arrived in Santa Teresa, the guide then told us it was too dangerous to walk at night and wanted everyone to stay there overnight. Naomi was by this point almost about to kill the guide. He actually pulled her aside and told her that we can go on if we wanted. There was another guide available to take us up to Aguas Calientes.
After we all sat in the car and were ready to go, he jumped on and warned us that it wasn't his responsibility if something happened to us or if we died. Literally! I was just like "Mate, if you did what you said you would do, we wouldn't be sitting here right now". By then it was already 5pm.
By the time we started walking it was 5:30pm and all of us were thinking we wouldn't be at Aguas Calientes until midnight. Not a very fun thought. The first part of the hike required us to cross a muddy area. It was actually the hardest part of the hike. The mud was thigh deep as one girl later experienced. But luckily the workers put some large planks, rocks etc there to make it more accessible.
We then needed to cross a river by sitting in a flying fox cart with our backpacks on the side. It was crazy that that little red cage of 1m by 1.5m could fit 4-5 people on it together with their backpacks. As there were lots of other tourists all wanting to cross the river at the same time we had to wait for another hour so until we could cross. So by then, it was totally dark.
Somehow our guide got a bit impatient and tried to push in for us whilst we waited at the flying cart crossing. Other tourists were very defensive and wouldn't let us through which was fair enough. Eventually however we got to the other side, we started our long hike.
Our guide somehow also became other tourists' guide as their guides fell behind to help other tourists out. However as the other tourists didn't let our guide push in, he was deliberately being unhelpful and wanted us to walk faster to loose the group.
As it was pitch dark, with the exception of Angus, we all had our head torch on and walked as fast as we could to get to Aquas Calientes. The long 5-6 hour walk wasn't spectacular as it was dark and it was in fact quite boring. The journey however ended up taking us only 3.5 hours as we power walked the whole way.
By the time we got there at around 11pm, we were all exhausted and all we wanted to do was to have dinner and go straight to bed for another early start to Machu Picchu.
This was when the bombshell fell on all other tourists. The restaurant that we all went to apparently ran out of food and our guide told them that there was no dinner for them and they had to wait for their guide to arrive before they could get any food or shown to their hostel.
He however led us through to the back of the restaurant and got the chef to cook a pizza for us. Angus, Naomi and I were so sure that the other tourists were going to murder us when we walked out past them. To be fair, the pizza was not even that nice, it had a few pieces of tomato and bacon and a lot of cheese on it and that was it. We ate the whole lot though as we were starved.
One girl from the other group decided that she could go hungry no more and decided to eat other people's leftovers. She literally went through someone's leftover pasta and ate another person's salad. I am sure she ate the crumbs of the pizza bread left on the other tables. Unbelievable.
They later also stayed in the same hostel with us. It was not a pleasant sight having these people death-staring at us. To be honest, I was glad that we actually went to a more reputable company this time and actually got looked after better. Apparently our tour company was called Condor Travel...
Anyway, the next morning I got up at 5:30am to go and get my special student ticket from the tour guide and then I met Naomi and Angus. And we were finally ready to go to Machu Picchu!
Machu Picchu was nice. It definitely wasn't THE most amazing ancient architecture I have ever seen. I mean, the Forbidden Palace in Beijing was amazing, Angkor Wat was amazing and they were all older than Machu Picchu.
It was nice though to finally see the city and to walk around in it. The construction was impressive as everything was made out of rocks stacked on top of each other perfectly. The Incans also seemed quite knowledgeable with their astronomy and predicted the sun's position really well. I think they worshipped the sun as their God.
We stayed in Machu Picchu for around 5 hours. We then retreated to our hostel for an afternoon nap as we were just exhausted having only had 4-5 hours sleep for the past 2 nights.
On our third day, we started hiking back down to Santa Teresa at 8am as we were told that the van would leave from there at 2pm. No problem. We got to Santa Teresa at just before 1pm and had a nice lunch. Then all of a sudden someone from the restaurant said that the road to Cusco was blocked by landslides and we had to wait. We also had to wait for our guide who ended up arriving at around 3pm.
Oh, just before we got to Santa Teresa, we had to pass through the mud patch again. It was the same one that we passed on our first day. Naomi tried to walk on the mountain side this time as she thought it might have some solid dry ground. After about 3 steps into it, she decided it was too muddy. While she turned around, this French girl in our group decided to march on Naomi's footsteps into the mud. One step, two steps, three steps, four steps. Oops, she's stuck.
As she was trying to pull one of her legs out of the mud, she unfortunately took the 5th step forward. By this time, the mud was thigh deep and she was totally stuck. She was screaming and panicking. She kept yelling that she was going to sink through the mud. I tried to pull her out by offering the end of my hiking stick. But she then broke my stick in half. So I handed her part of the stick so maybe she could use it as a leverage. Luckily there were two local workers nearby rushed to her aid.
She was screaming as they tried to pull her body out of the mud. After they rescued her they were unfortunately stuck in the mud themselves and it took them few minutes to get out. It was horrible. She was so devastated that she just rushed off without giving the workers a tip to wash herself in the river.
We all felt sorry for her, yet we laughed our guts out in secret as she thought she was the smart one. And as especially Naomi told her the mud was too deep and too difficult to pass. Some people...seriously.
Eventually our guide arrived at Santa Teresa and arranged for some transport to pick us up on the other side of this new landslide. So we had to walk over this landslide that was only about 15 minutes drive from Santa Teresa. By the time we crossed that landslide it was 4:30pm. We were not sure whether we could be back by 7pm as the guide promised. Other people in our group were more worried than the 3 of us considering they had flights to catch the next day.
Everything was smooth running until....umm...the landslide that nearly killed us. I was asleep in the van when I heard this loud bang noise. The driver stopped the van. He got out of the van and went to check out what was going on. All of a sudden, the whole mountain came down just on front of us. There was a small landslide when we got there, and heaps of mud came down while we were there. We were so lucky that the driver didn't decide to drive over the mud. If we were there while more mud was coming down, we would have been pushed over the edge of the cliff.
By the time we went back to a roadside restaurant for dinner and came back to check the landslide it was past 11pm. The driver just said we would have to wait till the next morning. Our lovely trip just got better....3 days into 4 days...
As there were 16 passengers in the car that only fit 15, I was lucky enough to sleep on the floor next to the sliding door. I had the sorest back the next morning. As the door step had 3 levels, I had my feet in one, my ass in the second and my head on the third. It was NOT fun.
I just couldn't wait to go back to Cusco to have a proper bed and a proper sleep.
When we finally got back to Cusco the next day after the landslide was cleared we were so relieved. We spent 2 more days there to rest, shop and also checked out Sacsayhuaman and few museums in town.
We headed to Arequipa after Cusco.
Arequipa, Peru
The centre of Arequipa was beautiful. It was another UNESCO World Heritage Listed place. I spent my 29th birthday here. You heard it right....29. I feel so old that even now I can't believe that I am 29.
We had a nice lunch in the food court of a modern shopping centre, went to see a romantic comedy movie (I can't even remember the name), then went for drinks and a lovely dinner. I was lucky to have Angus, Naomi, Rene and Stephanie there to celebrate it with me. I felt very warm and spoiled. I believe my presents are still coming from Naomi :)
I went out after dinner with Rene. Angus promised a HUGE night out with me but he chickened out. Maybe his soft stomach was not agreeing with the food again or something. But it was still nice to go out for a couple of drinks with Rene and a few dances. Well, only me dancing.
Colca Canyon
In Arequipa, we also did a 2D1N tour in the Colca Canyon. Apparently Colca Canyon is one of the deepest canyons in the world and it was almost twice the depth as the Grand Canyon. The scenery was really beautiful along the way. Oh, we had to hike about 7 hours the first day and about 3 hours the next. The trekking was not too difficult but it involved a lot of up and down hill. I hurt both of my knees the very first day and struggled in the afternoon. I was also unfortunately left behind by my mates.
By the time I got to the Oasis where we spent the night, Naomi and Angus were already having a cold drink by the natural spring pool. Bastards!
But at least I made it on my own both days. Up and down. Angus wanted to ride a mule the second day as he said he was too tired to get up at 4:30am. It must have been a funny ride. I have never ridden a mule before. Horses and yaks yes...mule, no.
Someone also stole my board shorts here in the Oasis. I mean, who would steal other people's worn clothes???? Seriously...
I also planned on going on a 2 day 1 night hike to Mt Chachani which is a 6000m+ mountain the very next day. I had to cancel it as my knees were about to explode. I was very disappointed in this as I really wanted to do a big mountain in South America. Chachani is also meant to be one of the easiest 6,000m+ mountains in the world! Aaahh...
Pisco, Peru
We got to this unfortunate town as the book said it was quite pretty with beautiful islands and desert nearby. We didn't realise that the town suffered a major earthquake 2 years after our guidebook was published. So we got there and we were just like "What is this place?". It was like a war zone. Collapsed houses, dusts, dirt roads, construction everywhere. Gosh.
We did a day tour to see the Ballestas Islands and Paracas National Reserve. Apparently Ballestas is similar to the Gallapogas Islands full of penguins, sea lions, birds etc. It was really nice to be up and close to these animals. Paracas was also nice. It was a desert next to the sea. Really strange phenomenon. You have the ocean on one side and desert the other side.
Lima, Peru
We spent about a week in Lima. This was where Angus and Naomi both left me. We went to check out a couple of museums in the centre. We stayed in Miraflores which was a very nice touristy area.
Lima itself was a lot better than expected. Yes it was a big city with many cars, people and pollution. But the centre was really historic and Miraflores was quite nice as it was on the sea. The food was also really good in Lima as they had all the food from all parts of Peru.
We went to visit Plaza de Armas which was another UNESCO World Heritage listed plaza. It had a really old cathedral from the 16th century and ancient government buildings. We also visited La Merced church was also from 1546.
Naomi and I also visited Museo Arqueological Rafael Larco Herrera and the Museo Nacional de Historia for a bit of insight on pre-Columbian Peru history and artefacts.
Oh, how can I forget about the Chinatown in Lima. It was THE best Chinatown in South America by far. The food was authentic and it looked similar the Chinatown in Brisbane. The food was amazing. We had some duck noodle soup and mixed bbq rice.
Angus and I went out the Friday before he left to the chic suburb of Barranco. It was one of the best party nights of this trip. We did heaps of dancing to Salsa and Reggaeton beats. The locals loved us. We first went to a bar with live music and I am sure that we were the only non-Peruvians in the whole bar. We then carried on to a club where dancing kicked in. It was great. Except Angus' stomach was a bit weak and he couldn't handle his drinks well and wanted to go home early at around 2:30am.
Naomi also did fair bit of shopping before she left.
Lima was actually quite cool at night as it was on the beach. I was bit surprised considering it was in the latitude of central Queensland. But of course, I always welcome a bit of a chill.
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